


A Typical Gift

by glazedmacguffin



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glazedmacguffin/pseuds/glazedmacguffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor's given Ace a video game.  As usual, it's more than it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Typical Gift

The 'Professor' as Ace called him despite many adamant arguments to discourage her was occupied at the window of the mundane little country shack they had been staying at. Occasionally he would hop up, hold his hat on his head as if he were on the edge of bolting outside and facing some unscrupulous foe, but then he'd settle again. He'd watch and impatiently wait and maybe even brood a little. The worst part was he was distracting her, and he needed to stop if there was nothing going on because she didn't need to be looking away from the screen so often. Not when she was reaching the final levels of the game she was playing.

They were a wicked invention, these video games. There weren't so many of them when she was young and she didn't have much of a chance to play them as a teenager. She knew later they got more elaborate, and included holograms and more than this limited pixelised imagery, but they were fantastic. This one she'd done pretty well at, already on the last levels and waiting for the final boss. She at first thought it would be harder when the Professor had presented her with the box, shiny and white with a little discus shaped UFO on the cover, all in greys and embossed and new looking with that fresh game smell when it was opened. He never failed to challenge her, though this she guessed she would finish off first try. But now there was something interesting going on outside and no matter how interesting a game was she didn't want to miss out on the real action. Especially with the speakers on the television turned up so high that they drowned out whatever might be happening out there.

"What is it?!" she piped up, hitting the _start_ key in the middle of the controller frantically. "And why isn't this pausing!"

"Keep playing!" he insisted, pointing in her direction. "Don't put that controller down!"

"Why not?" She asked, brow knitting and lips pursing up as she started trying to regain the time she'd lost stopping the game. At the bottom of the screen, her little turret flailed wildly, shooting out pixelated bubbles that wrapped around individual oncoming ships. She almost missed one of the lower ones, too.

"Did I hear someone scream? What's going on out there?"

"Keep playing!" he repeated, half hanging through the curtains when she hazarded a glance. Now, if she strained, she could tell some noises from outside. Funny, they seemed to coordinate with-

Coordinate... with...

"Oooooh," her face pinched up in the most unpleasant expression that Ace McShane could muster. The Doctor pulled some stunts, but this one was terrible. Terrible and horrible and when she was done with saving the world she was going to strangle him! This time she would. She swore it.

"You could have warned me!"

"You were under enough pressure!"

"At least bring in my new tape deck so I can listen to something decent. Unless you've gone and destroyed that one too..."

The Doctor made a little huffing noise, not enjoying being bossed. But she didn't enjoy being played, so he could just deal with it. Right manipulative when he wanted to be, and too clever for his own good. He oozed out the door, and a flash of a hatted silhouette went scurrying by the window.

She bit her lip up between her teeth, trying to keep focused on the game. One row down, five more to go. Two ships at once. Three stuck together. She just had to remind herself that it was a game. Just a game. No harm could possibly come from a game, after all. Right? Right.

It was all she could do to keep from yelping as across from her, through the thin fabric curtains covering a wide double door, that silhouette went scuttling by holding frantically to a rectangular box. And just after him two big-headed skinny shapes loping along wielding some sort of ray gun.

Okay, if he lived, maybe she wouldn't strangle him.

There was the sound of breaking wood, something that sounded like turkey warbling but more mechanical, the Doctor laughing, the Doctor screaming, the Doctor laughing again. The sound of the door opening, and then the gratifying welcome of his rolling accent.

"Sorry, there was a bit of a detour between here and the TARDIS," he beamed as he went to sit beside of her. "John Lee Hooker or B.B. King?"

She snorted incredulously, as if he ought to know without asking. "Hooker. B.B. King is too slow for this...."

"I beg your pardon," he responded, popped a tape into the tape deck, and disconnected the sound from the television. At least she could finish off her heroic defence of the British countryside while listening to a rollicking version of _Boom Boom_. He returned to his place by the window to squint out through the curtains.

"...You owe me for this one, Professor!" Just in case he forgot between now and the time she finished.

"I don't doubt it in the least, Ace."

**Author's Note:**

> Done as a prompt for Oncoming Storms on LiveJournal.


End file.
